Photo: Kevin LallierDeuteronomy 23:25-26 reflects the limits on altruism:
When thou comest into thy neighbor’s standing corn, then thou mayest pluck ears with thy hand; but thou shalt not move a sickle unto thy neighbor’s standing corn.
It’s O.K. to take a bit of the owner’s produce for sustenance; but to ensure that what is taken is not for commercial purposes, the taker cannot use machinery (a sickle) that would raise his marginal productivity and thus raise his output beyond what might be for immediate sustenance.
The owner does have some protection, but he is also supposed to charitable. This seems like a pretty reasonable compromise between altruism and property rights.
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Commons problem, anybody?
I wonder what Bible version was quoted above. Corn and potatoes were New World crops and were not introduced to Europe or the Meditteranean until the 15th century. The reference could have been to wheat or barley which have been grown since the beginning of time.
Maize is American. He’s talking about wheat and barley which are not edible.
Anyone else find that translation of Deuteronomy referring to “corn” as eyebrow-raisingly anachronistic?
So by these rules, Robin Hood would be in the wrong. He takes for others which may or may not be considered to be for his own interests.
On a side note – I once took a low THC hemp plant from an experimental farm and planted it in my mother-in-laws garden. So sweet and naive she was that she just pulled it out thinking it was a weed. A weed indeed!
I love how it’s impossible for any on this blog to write a post without having 5 commentors point out an error. Smartest comments on the Internet.
The name “corn” only came to refer to American corn relatively recently. Previously it was a general term for any cereal grain. In fact, “corn” and “grain” share the same root – the Latin “granum”.
“Corn” meaning grain in general, not just maize in particular, may no longer be in general use here, but it’s not that uncommon or surprising, and I think it’s still quite common in some parts of the English-speaking world outside of the USA. And what’s that about wheat and barley not being edible?